AT VATICAN II
October 13 - 20, 1962
Fifty Years Later
SURPRISING UNIVERSALITY AT FIRST MEETINGS
Saturday, October 13 -- the first
“working day” (General Congregation) for all the Council Fathers – began at
9:00 am in the Council aula in St.
Peter’s Basilica. It lasted only fifty
minutes!
Ten
“commissions” had been established to prepare the Council’s final texts:
On Doctrine, Faith and Morals
On Bishops
and Dioceses
On the
Oriental Churches
On the
Sacraments
On the
Clergy and Laity
On Religious Men and Women
On the
Missions
On the
Sacred Liturgy
On Seminaries
and Schools
On the Lay
Apostolate, the Press
and Entertainment
At the conclusion of the Saturday
morning Mass, each Bishop had at his place three booklets: a booklet with a
complete listing of all the Council Fathers; a booklet listing those Bishops
who had served on each Commission during the preparatory phase (the so-called
“Curial list”); and a booklet with blank spaces for voting, in which each
Bishop was asked to list, by hand, sixteen candidates of their choice for each
of the ten Commissions.
The German Bishops, led by Joseph
Cardinal Frings of Cologne, had discussed alternative candidates – not from the
“Curial list” but nominated from each national episcopal conference. Achille Cardinal Lienart, president of the
French Bishops, agreed – and as the voting procedures that Saturday morning were
being explained to all the Bishops, Cardinal Lienart rose to ask that the
Council Fathers be given more time to study the qualifications of candidates
for the 160 important offices on the ten Commissions. His motion was seconded by Cardinal Frings.
Prolonged applause followed both
interventions.
The Council was adjourned until
9:00 am on the following Tuesday, so that on Sunday and Monday, October 14 and
15, the Bishops could meet in their national or regional conferences.
By
Tuesday morning, a leaflet was distributed to all the Bishops which contained
the names proposed by the various national episcopal conferences as candidates
for the Commissions. The well-organized list
of the French, German, Austrian and Swiss Bishops was supported by the Bishops
of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, as well as those of Poland and
Yugoslavia.
The Bishops from Italy agreed on a
list which gave wide representation to the different nationalities. The United States’ Bishops, after meeting at
the North American College, had drawn up their own list of candidates, having consulted
with various national hierarchies. The Asian and African Bishops also composed
their own lists.
In
the Council hall on Tuesday morning, each Bishop voted independently; after
three days of counting the hand-written ballots, the members of the Commissions
were announced at the 3rd General Congregation on Saturday, October
20. Unexpectedly, in the “tumultuous”
first days of the Council, the Bishops had elected Commission members international
in scope and varied in pastoral experiences -- a step that theologian Fr. Yves
Congar called “the first substantive Conciliar action.” African Archbishop (later
Cardinal) Bernardin Gantin of Benin said the events of the first days “opened
the way to the spirit of collegiality” among the Council Fathers. Reportedly, Pope John agreed: “You have done
right in expressing your thoughts aloud; that is why I have called the Bishops
to a Council.”
Their
next task would be discussion of the schema
on the Sacred Liturgy.
( Next Week: The Press at Vatican II ) -- Monsignor John T. Myler
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